Guardiola may be lying in the rough but he has escape plan

ep Guardiola has a love of golf and uses the sport to describe Manchester City’s fortunes this season. They are, he believes, like a golfer whose approach play is excellent, who constantly makes the greens, but then goes ‘bogey, bogey, bogey’ when it comes to putting instead of ‘birdie, birdie, birdie’.

But like that golfer, Guardiola believes City are close. Close to being exceptionally good and better than their results. They are creating but not delivering.

He also knows that he himself has to do better in what has turned into a fascinating battle of belief.

But despite his evident frustration, that belief remains rock solid. He believes that he has already put in the groundwork this season for years of sustained success at City. In two, three years time, he expects them to dominate English football. He is attempting to impose something that will last for years.

Conceptually, philosophically, stylistically, Guardiola genuinely believes City have done well and that, also, this will be a big summer of change for them.

City need to increase their level and to do that three or four top-class players have to be signed to go straight into the team and execute what he wants.

Why did that not happen last summer? You can only buy so many players in one window while others deserved their chance and, maybe, City gambled in hoping to squeeze one more year out of those players whose contracts are expiring.

At the same time Guardiola was only able to field two of his acquisitions in the FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal on Sunday – goalkeeper Claudio Bravo and forward Leroy Sané – because of injury.

City have been hurt, in particular, by the loss of Ilkay Gundogan and Gabriel Jesus, who was signed in January, and along with John Stones and Vincent Kompany – if he can stay fit – are regarded as the spine of the team.

It means that Guardiola has largely worked with the players he inherited, an older group with the full-backs, in particular, struggling to deal with the way he wants them to play.

Six senior players are out of contract at the end of this season – including the full-backs Pablo Zabaleta, Gaël Clichy and Bacary Sagna, plus winger Jesús Navas (who has been playing at rightback recently), Yaya Touré and goalkeeper Willy Caballero – and it is conceivable that all will leave to create room in the squad.

At City’s training ground Guardiola has, as expected, analysed all of his team’s matches and detected that a pattern has emerged. For a manager who demands his teams kill off games within the first 25 minutes it has simply not happened. Many chances have been missed while defensive vulnerabilities have been exposed.

But Guardiola will not compromise on his attacking approach because for him football is proactive, not reactive. He wants to build up and dominate opponents. So if they take the chances there will be less pressure on the defence and less of an